Hannah Arendt on Love and How to Live with the Fundamental Fear of Loss

such an eternity, there would still be time, but none of the changes in time would be experienced as a negative loss. Rather, all forms of change would be experienced as an ongoing part of the divine good. The afterlife would thus enable one to live on with the beloved, in an experience of eternity that is untouched by the prospect of tragic loss.

as Hannah Arendt writes, ‘constantly bound by craving and fear to a future full of uncertainties, we strip each present moment of its calm, its intrinsic import, which we are unable to enjoy. And so, the future destroys the present.’

It introduces the idea that the acceptance of the experience of love, ofthe experience of the other, of the gaze raised towards the other, contributes to this supreme love that is both the love we owe to God and the love that God brings to us. And, of course, that is a stroke of genius! Christianity has managed to capture on behalf of its Church –

“We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it’s our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand.”

“To love is to cast light,”8 Rilke writes, while “to be loved means to be ablaze.” Who is to say that being ablaze is any less holy than casting light? And how can we cast pure light if we are not ablaze?